Daily Briefing: Government to invest $72m for workforce development; Keppel and SPH won't increase price offer for M1's majority shares

And over $28,000 lost to tech support scams in 2018.

From Channel News Asia:

The Government will inject $72m from 2019 to 2020 to pump up workforce development and training in the built environment sector through enhancing scholarship programmes with training grants and retention incentives.

They include a S$3,000 training grant for graduates to attend skills upgrading courses as well as a S$7,000 incentive a year after completing their bond, National Development Minister Lawrence Wong announced on Tuesday (Jan 22).

Read more here.

From Reuters:

Keppel and Singapore Press Holdings (SPH) announced that they will not raise their bid to gain the majority control of M1.

“The offeror wishes to announce that it does not intend to increase the offer price of S$2.06 in cash per offer share under any circumstances whatsoever,” Keppel and SPH said in a regulatory announcement issued by their jointly-owned holding company.

The closing date was extended to 18 February 18 from 4February. M1 has a total market value of $1.92b.

Malaysia’s Axiata, which holds a 28.3% stake in M1, said in September the offer should reflect the accurate future value of M1, inclusive of an acceptable control premium and consistent with market standards.

Read more here. 

From Yahoo! News Singapore:

The Singapore Police Force (SPF) urged the public to be cautious of tech support scams as more than $28,000 was lost to such schemes in 2018.

In such scams, victims were tricked into making payments to purchase software for fake virus infections on their computers. Some of these victims were told to provide their credit or debit card information and later discovered unauthorised charges, said the police.
“In some cases, the victims allowed the scammers to access their e-mail accounts by providing their passwords. This allowed the scammers to misuse their e-mail accounts to commit other scams,” the police explained.

Read more here.